Andrew Tate

People told BuzzFeed News how their loved ones have embraced deeply hateful and misogynistic world views since listening to “alpha male” influencers.

A lot of students just want to feel like they’re accepted into a part of a community, and these online forums fill that void for them. What is difficult about being in this position is that I want to be honest with them in the same way I would be with friends. He loves podcasts, and he listens to a lot of podcasts: all far-right, all the time, for like 13 to 14 hours a day. The divorce was messy, and that’s part of why he started subscribing to those ideals — that was a major trigger. But he did have several traits that Andrew Tate seemed to exhibit when I first met him, but not to the extent of now — it’s gotten much worse. There have recently been incidents of students attempting to coerce and manipulate younger students to send nude photos. Last year, he started to send me clips of Kevin Samuels, saying things like “Finally someone who gets it.” He would make insinuations about needing to change the way he was because he was a “beta.” He began sharing posts on Facebook about how it’s okay to beat women if they step out of line, or how women are not being “high value.” It’s like he doesn’t even recognize reality or the poor arguments that he’s making. He began to say things like “Women need to be reminded of their place” or “Black women need to go back to being homemakers and supporting their Black kings.” But one of the most startling behavior changes I’ve noticed was he began becoming more violent towards women. “Children who are exposed to the internet will always find ideas that they misinterpret because they don’t have real-life experience,” he told BuzzFeed News. But he became a godfather figure for misogynoir — misogyny directed at Black women — in his podcast and across social media. “On the surface, there’s that appreciation of genuine problems that the men suffer in society, but these communities are not about support,” Sugiura said.